Free Republic

SAN PASQUAL VALLEY – For 50 years she called San Diego County home. That's why animal-welfare activists are upset that Peaches, the oldest African elephant in the country, died earlier this week at Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo. Activists are criticizing the San Diego Wild Animal Park for its decision to move Peaches and two other older elephants, Wankie and Tatima, to the cold-weather city in early 2003. With two of those elephants now dead, they called the move "grossly irresponsible." Peaches, 55, died of "complications due to old age," according to Lincoln Park officials. She was found lying on the...

U.S. cities that implemented big minimum-wage hikes to $10 an hour or more in 2015 have seen a strikingly similar aftermath: Job gains have fallen to multiyear lows at restaurants, hotels and other leisure and hospitality venues. The data aren't, for the most part, stark and reliable enough to amount to smoking-gun proof. But Chicago, Oakland, San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. — all on the leading edge of the push for big minimum wage hikes — all show worrisome job trends.

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - Indiana is a gun state, and government leaders here are pushing back on President Obama's efforts to increase gun control. The president wants to make an example of Indiana because gun laws in the Hoosier state are less strict than the gun laws in his home state of Illinois. During the president's CNN town hall meeting on gun control Thursday he spotlighted the number of illegal guns in Chicago. "The problem," he said, "is that about 30, 40 percent of those guns are coming from Indiana, from across the border, where there are much laxer laws." The...

Semi driver cited after rolling over graves at Abraham Lincoln VETERANS cemetery Updated: Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2016 ELWOOD - Elwood police have cited a truck driver after he allegedly entered the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery and ran an 18-wheel semitrailer over the graves of three veterans. Disobeying the "No Truck" signs posted at the entrance to the cemetery off Route 53, the driver told police he was traveling Monday afternoon to a warehouse located at the nearby intermodal facility operated by CenterPoint Properties, according to a news release from Elwood initiative Safe Roads Illinois. Identified by Elwood Police Chief Fred...

Presidential candidate Ted Cruz today announced his 46-person Illinois Leadership Team that will help direct his strong grassroots organization and bring his consistent, conservative message to voters throughout the Prairie State...

In a year when the Chicago Police Department, mayor and the city itself dominated national headlines and received widespread attention over the fatal shooting of teenager Laquan McDonald by a police officer, the city also saw an increase in violence. Four hundred sixty-eight homicides were reported in 2015, making it the most violent year since 2012, when 500 people were killed, the Chicago Tribune reported. The number, however, still was well below the level of homicides in the 1970s. Chicago's violent streak was much worse than those of other major cities. Los Angeles saw 280 killings through Dec. 26, and...

llinois is America's biggest basket case: Over $150 billion in unfunded retirement liabilities. The worst overall fiscal condition of any state. Two governors and a raft of other public officials sent to prison. Corruption that costs every citizen more than $1,300 a year. Job growth that trails all surrounding states. The slow-motion liquidation of Downstate's manufacturing economy. Over 300,000 more people fleeing the state just since 2010. The venal and bankrupt political class of both parties created this toxic mess. Those who benefited served as enablers, including public employees, unions and the big business interests who always seemed to cut...

Illinois' role in the 2016 presidential nominating process began to take shape Monday, the first day of filing for White House aspirants and their all-important convention delegates to get their names on the state's March 15 primary ballot. On the Republican side, businessman and reality TV show star Donald Trump, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio filed for the GOP presidential preference ballot when the doors to the State Board of Elections opened at 8 a.m. All but Rubio also filed national convention delegate slates in the...

<p>As Wilbur Ross so eloquently noted, for Puerto Rico "it's the end of the beginning... and the beginning of the end," as he explained "Puerto Rico is the US version of Greece." However, as JPMorgan explains, for some states the pain is really just beginning as Municipal bond risk will only become more important over time, as assets of some severely underfunded plans are gradually depleted.</p>

While the video release of a Chicago police officer's shooting of Laquan McDonald prompted a domino effect of change, including the ousting of the police superintendent and a federal civil rights investigation, the department finished 2015 on an ironic note: Officers shot the fewest people that they have in years. Chicago police officers shot 22 people in 2015, eight of them fatally. That's a 40 percent drop in the total number of people shot compared with 2014, when 37 people were hit by police gunfire and 16 of them were killed, according to department figures.

Calls for Chicago mayor, Rahm Emanuel, to resign have been increasing and include a call from Al Sharpton. Amid rumors that Emanuel's office withheld the Laquan McDonald police video purposefully to boost his reelection chances, Illinois is now considering the possibility of a recall election. [Snip] Emanuel has been adamant in insisting that he will not step down and held a press conference to that effect last week. [Snip] With Chicago, Illinois, and other prominent Democrats calling for Emanuel to resign and even The New Yorker writing about Emanuel's "sudden but well-deserved fall," it's hard to see how he stays...

A hallmark of Obama's presidency since his early days in office has been his habit of pitting American citizens against each other: Democrats vs. Republicans, blacks vs. whites, rich vs. poor, climate change alarmists vs. climate change skeptics, gay vs. straight, etc.It was shocking at first. Seven years in, it is depressingly expected of the Community-Organizer-in-Chief.In his weekly address, released Friday, Obama vowed to spend his final year in office seeking ways to impose gun control policies via executive fiat, and urged American citizens to stand up against groups like the NRA -- which, of course, is made up of...

In a move that is certain to stir things up as the political new year unfolds, President Obama will lead a televised town hall Thursday to address tightening restrictions on access to guns. Obama will sit down with Anderson Cooper on CNN at 8 p.m. ET for the one-hour event titled "Guns in America," which coincides with the fifth anniversary, next Friday, of the shooting of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Arizona, in a mass shooting that left six dead and 13 others wounded.

<p>Matt Brandon, secretary-treasurer of the Service Employees International Union Local 73, which represents the aviation police officers, said he doesn’t understand why the officers are prohibited from carrying guns.</p> <p>He said the union has been unable to get the aviation department to change the no gun policy, which dates to the early 1990s.</p>

The nearly 300 unarmed police officers patrolling Chicago’s O’Hare and Midway airports have been told to “run and hide” during active shootings. Internal aviation department documents obtained by CNN instruct officers not “to become part of the response” to an attack. “If evacuation is not possible, you should find a place to hide where the active shooter is less likely to find you. Block entry to your hiding place and lock the door,” but Matt Brandon, secretary-treasurer of the airport officers union, told CNN they have serious issues with the protocol. “These men and women are sent to the Chicago...

Several protesters took to popular North Side brunch restaurants on New Year's Day to chant and raise awareness of police violence in Chicago.The protesters, including members of Black Lives Matter Chicago, the Black Youth Project, and Assata's Daughters, went into restaurants Kanela Breakfast Club and Dove's Luncheonette in Wicker Park and chanted "While you are here celebrating over brunch, black families are struggling to keep themselves safe from CPD."The protest, which began trending as #BlackBrunchChi on Twitter, was meant to "intervene on the 'celebration' of consumerism, corrupt property zoning/displacement practices, and the retail and service industries' route collusion with police...

At the big Oprah-headlined rally for Barack Obama in Los Angeles on Saturday, surprise guest Maria Shriver, California's First Lady, cited -- as one of a string of reasons why the state's Democrats should vote for the Senator from Illinois -- the fact that, like California, he was "diverse." In the wake of Super Tuesday, we've learned that such diversity doesn't necessarily include Latinos, especially those older than 30. But a self-congratulatory article in the India Express touting the influence of Indian-Americans in the Democratic primary process reveals even greater constraints on the appeal of Obama's diversity. In California, exit...

--(snip)--Despite being the nation's third most populous city, Chicago far outpaces New York City, Los Angeles and every other large city in America in the sheer number of homicide and shooting victims, though it fares better than some smaller cities on a per capita comparison. And despite the attention given to Chicago's police-involved shootings, the city had fewer in 2015, with 22 people shot, than in recent years. In an interview with the Tribune, interim Superintendent John Escalante said he plans to fight violence in 2016 by employing some of McCarthy's past strategies, including a continued focus on arresting people...

No doubt you, too, spent the holidays relishing the humiliation of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the overrated and obnoxious Democratic Party hack who, finally, is teetering on the brink of political oblivion. How the former ballet dancer and Sarah Lawrence alumnus parlayed ambition and drive and the ability to scream like a lunatic into high office and a fortune of more than $10 million is one of the remarkable political stories of our time. "Emanuel has succeeded in almost every professional endeavor he has undertaken," Ryan Lizza wrote approvingly in 2009. Spoke too soon. How bad is Rahm Emanuel? He...

The results are in for one Illinois university's famous mock presidential election, but the clear winner may surprise some. Western Illinois University's mock election predicted a landslide victory for Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders, with running mate Martin O'Malley, in 2016. The predicted Sanders-O'Malley ticket garnered 404 electoral votes to Jeb Bush-Marco Rubio's 114 votes. In the popular vote, Sanders earned 741 votes (49 percent) to Bush's 577 (38 percent). The famously accurate mock election correctly predicted the outcomes of the 2008 and 2012 elections, and the university claims it's the "largest and most elaborate mock presidential simulation in the nation."...